Fifty-one-year old Sarah Mupakati does not remember the last time she ate sadza, a cooked cornmeal. She opens her one-room tent which she shares with her five grown-up children - the corner that serves as her pantry is empty. It has been like that for the past month. The little she has been getting from barter trading is used up that same day. It is all too easy to understand her relief as she joins the queue to receive her first food rations from the World Food Program (WFP).

CERF provides $3 million for Zimbabwe cholera response

15 June 2011: More than $3 million was provided from the CERF in June to respond to a cholera outbreak that threatened the lives of more than four million people in Zimbabwe.

Cholera has infected nearly 100,000 people in the Southern African country since 2008, claiming more than 4,000 lives. Lack of investment in water service delivery during the past decade in Zimbabwe has limited safe water supplies country-wide, putting many of the population at high risk of infection from cholera and other water-borne diseases.

The $3 million provided by the CERF enabled the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide chemicals to treat water for four million people, including more than half a million children under five. The CERF also allowed UNICEF to provide non-food items to prevent cholera (including water purification tablets, soap and water containers) for a further 40,000 people in particularly high-risk areas.